


partnership

by superfluouskeys



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, don't be fooled i'm still moicy garbage at heart, had to give it a go, hi someone suggested this and i, post-reunion short, probably like a three parter or so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 04:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16509167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: Ashe receives some much-needed aid, but it comes with strings attached.





	partnership

**Author's Note:**

> I guess all my notes are in the tags LOL.

The road goes on for miles, and the ropes that bind her wrists can't be sawed apart, at least not without B.O.B. in working order.  The sun is brutal, and Ashe feels her arms and the back of her neck starting to burn.  She doesn't know what to expect when one of those damn little Oasis pods comes whizzing around over her head.  Part of her wants to scream, to damn McCree's name for calling some fancy powerful friend of his to really drive home her defeat, but she's too hot and too tired and too hurt to care at the moment.

They'll meet again.  And next time, Ashe won't be playing games.

"Buckle up, Bob," she says, instead, as the Oasis pod lands, and their car grinds mysteriously to a halt.  "I'd say the adventure's just starting."

Two people step out of the pod, a strikingly tall woman and a man about half her height.  The woman looks up and shields her eyes against the sun distastefully, then turns her attention to the car, as though she is more interested in it than in Ashe and Bob.

"It amazes me," she says, in a voice like rich velvet, "that grown men are still permitted to run about like children."

The woman looks up, and Ashe sees that her eyes are mismatched.

"I guess you know McCree," says Ashe.

The woman raises her chin, like she's trying to study Ashe from a different angle.  "Unfortunately."

Suddenly the sun isn't so hot, and Ashe's wrists don't hurt so much.  She feels herself beginning to smile as she studies the strange woman.  She's dressed up in that fancy garb they wear in Oasis, but there's some kind of tech on her back that can't be just decoration.  "Sounds like we got something in common already, stranger."

The woman quirks one eyebrow dubiously and strolls around the side of the cart.  The top of the cart barely comes up to her thighs.  Ashe narrowly resists the urge to stare overlong.

The woman looks her over, her gaze lingering first on Ashe's bound hands and then on Bob's severed head, and then she returns her attention to Ashe's face.  "That remains to be seen," she says.  "Horace?"

The man who accompanied her, whose presence Ashe had already nearly forgotten, reappears with some little trinket, which the woman takes and aims at Ashe's bound wrists.  She reaches out with her free hand to steady her target, and Ashe notices for the first time that it looks like it's been badly injured.

The little hunk of junk she's holding emits a beam that slices through the rope like it's nothing, so easily Ashe almost flinches for fear of losing a hand—what a fitting end to this day that would be—but the beam doesn't so much as graze her.

Ashe lets out an involuntary sigh as the ropes fall away and rubs at her wrists to assess the damage.  The woman, on the other hand, is holding the severed rope up to her right eye, the darker one, like the left one is useless.

"Fascinating," she murmurs.  Then, to Horace, "Take this, as well."  She returns her attention to Ashe, almost sharply, and offers her injured hand.  "Your hands, if you please?"

Ashe frowns instinctively but, dumbfounded, offers her hands.  The woman flexes her left hand and releases a fine mist from her gauntlet, not exactly visible, but instantly palpable, like pins and needles.  The skin on Ashe's wrists rubbed raw by the heavy robes repairs itself before her eyes.

"Well, I'll be," says Ashe as she looks up to meet the strange woman's eyes.  "You know, I don't like to owe favours."

The woman lets out a huff of laughter, but her expression doesn't change to match.  She is still looking at Ashe's wrists.  "This isn't a charity mission."

Ashe's smile falls, and she withdraws her hands from the woman's grasp.  "Oh yeah?  Then what is it?"

The woman folds her hands behind her back.  "My employers feel you might be of use to them."

"Uh uh, no way," says Ashe, scrambling to her feet.  "I don't work for anyone but myself."

The woman looks up at her, still somehow imposing even as Ashe towers over her from the top of the car.  She chuckles again, and this time, her lips twist into a small, mirthless smile.  "We all answer to someone," she says, then adds, mockingly, like it's an insult, " _Ashe_."

Ashe folds her arms, like a feeble defense, and searches almost desperately for a way to gain the advantage.  She thinks about injured arms and one eye that isn't as sharp as the other.  "And how embarrassing," she drawls, with the biting manners of a life now lost to her, "that you know my name when I don't know yours."

The woman holds a moment, like she's considering Ashe's weak points in return.  Her eyes are narrowed, and there's still an uneasy kind of smile about her lips.  "Ah, forgive me my manners," she says.  "Dr. Moira O'Deorain," she bends at the waist in a bow, but does not lower her gaze even for a second, and as she bows, she offers her injured hand as though to help Ashe down.  "At your service."

Ashe glances over at Bob to find that Horace has already collected most of his parts.  She allows herself a little sigh, then turns back, takes Moira's hand, and steps down, from the car to the wheel to the ground.

Once she's gained her footing, she steps just to Moira's side and twists her arm, hard.  Moira staggers and cries out, but before Ashe can land a good kick, something inexplicable happens, and Ashe is the one who is crying out in pain.

It's like the blood is being sucked from her veins.  It's like the individual cells that make up her body are convulsing in the final throes of death.  It's like the fabric of the universe is coming undone in the exact spot where she's standing, and it all starts at Moira's injured hand—

No.  Her gauntlet.  She used the other one to heal Ashe's wrist, and this one—

Ashe releases her grip on Moira's arm and falls to her knees.  She's faintly aware that she's screaming, but it's like the sound is coming from outside her body.  "Please!" she hears herself cry.  She struggles to focus, sees the way the air seems to twist from her body to Moira's gauntlet, and when she looks up into Moira's eyes, she sees only cold indifference.

"Please!" she cries again, though she doesn't expect mercy.  There's nothing else to say, and what a rotten way to go out.  It's dark, somehow, and cold, like Moira has blocked out the relentless sun entirely with the weight of her presence.

But then suddenly it's pins and needles again, and Ashe is acutely aware of her own ragged breathing, but the pain is a hollow memory.  It might as well never have happened at all.

"Now," says Moira, low and dark like the shadow she casts.  "Have you decided to cooperate?"

And as much as Ashe loathes being beholden to anyone, as much as it curdles her blood to have been bested twice in one afternoon, she can summon a certain appreciation for a woman who knows how to get things done.  And because Ashe wants to live long enough to get her revenge, she nods and takes the hand she is offered without further incident.


End file.
